This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Evan Bouchard
Edmonton Oilers Defense
Sixty-four assists at 24, third among defencemen in this edition, and the third-highest chance share of any skater in it.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | EDM | 7 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10.0 | 12:21 |
| 2020-21 | EDM | 14 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 38 | 5.3 | 14:50 |
| 2021-22 | EDM | 81 | 12 | 31 | 43 | +10 | 28 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 205 | 5.9 | 19:48 |
| 2022-23 | EDM | 82 | 8 | 32 | 40 | +6 | 28 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 156 | 5.1 | 18:31 |
| 2023-24 | EDM | 81 | 18 | 64 | 82 | +34 | 32 | 8 | 0 | 7 | 220 | 8.2 | 23:00 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 265 | 41 | 130 | 171 | +43 | 92 | 14 | 0 | 10 | 629 | 6.5 | 19:55 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
81 games, 18 goals and 64 assists for 82 points, 8 on the power play, 32 penalty minutes, 23:00 a night and plus-34. He took 62.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,482 minutes, the 99th percentile, and his ice went 94-58 against an expectation of 93.57-56.22.
The 64 assists were third among defencemen in this edition behind Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar. The ledger is a first pair getting almost exactly what its play deserved, which on this club is unusual.
The Finesse Game
220 shots at a median of 51 feet with 76 per cent from beyond 40. The shot from the point is the hardest on this roster and it is the reason he had 64 assists rather than 40.
130 career assists in 265 games. He walks the line, opens the lane himself, and puts the puck through traffic to a stick rather than at a shin pad. He moves the puck out of his own zone with a first pass rather than a skate, and it is the quickest outlet on the club.
The Physical Game
He is 6-3 and 192 and does not punish anybody, and 32 penalty minutes in 81 games at twenty-three minutes a night is a very low rate.
He does not clear the front of his own net and he does not win many battles on the wall. The defending is the weakest part of him and the pairing with Mattias Ekholm is arranged to hide it.
The Intangibles
Tenth overall in 2018 out of Oakville, five seasons, and 171 points in 265 games at 24. Only Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar had more assists from the blue line last season and both are older.
The question is whether the defending ever arrives. At 24 it does not need to yet, and the club has built the pair so that it does not have to.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
11 of 230 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 4.8%, 95th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
- durable· was available
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
62.5% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 53.2% for his club in the minutes he sat: +9.3, 100th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
60% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 93rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“He walks the line, opens the lane himself, and puts the puck through traffic to a stick rather than at a shin pad.”
“He moves the puck out of his own zone with a first pass rather than a skate, and it is the quickest outlet on the club.”
“He is 6-3 and 192 and does not punish anybody, and 32 penalty minutes in 81 games at twenty-three minutes a night is a very low rate.”
“He does not clear the front of his own net and he does not win many battles on the wall.”
“He does not clear the front of his own net and he does not win many battles on the wall.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,482 minutes
- Expected goals
- 62.5%
- 100th pct
- Shot attempts
- 60%
- 99th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 94 for, 58 against. Expected: 93.6 and 56.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 38 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2023-24 · 81 games
- Top speed
- 22.0 mph
- 61st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.91 a game
- Distance
- 3.29 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 100.5 mph
- 94th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 1482 minutes at five-on-five
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2023-24
- The club
- EDM took 56.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 62.5% — 5.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,482 minutes at five-on-five — 97th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mattias Ekholm | 61.9% | 64.8% | 63.2% |
| Connor McDavid | 65.0% | 58.4% | 59.1% |
| Zach Hyman | 65.7% | 58.2% | 58.4% |
61.9% together, 64.8% for him apart and 63.2% for Ekholm apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
301 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 18 of them goals. His median goal came from 47 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 76% from beyond forty.